The life changing power of IMPACT Magazine

By Chris Welner

I pulled up alongside my buddy Ken’s SUV on a commute to work at IMPACT this summer and tapped on his window to tell him to quit slowing down traffic. I was on my bike when I caught him at the lights on 26th Avenue S.W. in Calgary.

“Boy that magazine sure has changed your life,” he said. Indeed. Commuting to work on my bike is just one of the ways being editor at IMPACT has changed my life. I’m an overweight 50-something guy, who’s always loved sport and tried to stay active playing just about every game out there. But I never considered myself an athlete and never took setting fitness goals and nutrition seriously. I played, had a beer and popped a few too many chicken wings.

IMPACT has been like the angel sitting on my shoulder nudging the devil aside to remind me that I should get up for Pete Estabrooks’ 8:30 TKO Saturday morning circuit training class. It’s pushed me out the door in the middle of the day to swim lengths at the Talisman Centre pool.

It has sent me riding the hills of Kananskis Country and the paths circling the city of Calgary — squeezed into compression shorts for 40, 50, 60K rides that bring me home with such a sense of joy and accomplishment that I can’t wait to get out again. It’s got me knocking on friends’ doors, asking, like a kid, if they can come out to play and join my rides.  It’s made me think about the things I put into my body. The green smoothies that have become a staple of my diet, guzzling spinach, kale and mango through a straw and loving the grassy sweetness that fills me up every morning. I couldn’t have spotted quinoa, organic produce or Udo’s Oil from three paces. I had never considered the word glycemic when I reached for something to eat. A lot has changed in a year. I’ve dropped about 30 pounds (and counting) and all those numbers my doctor cautioned me about have changed for the better.

It all got me thinking about how many people IMPACT Magazine has affected in the past 20 years in a similar fashion.

Readership for the most unique health, fitness and sport magazine in Canada has grown to about 200,000 people each issue. There are health magazines filled with miracle cures. There are fitness magazines bursting with testosterone and oiled bodies and there are magazines that serve only runners, only weightlifters, only triathletes, or only cyclists.
IMPACT’s mandate is different. IMPACT has been celebrating athletes from all walks of life for 20 years. We are here to inspire through the stories we tell; to plant seeds for a better life through health and fitness in people young and old. These are IMPACT athletes, people who pull new and creative workouts from our pages and take them to the gym, or mix up their own green smoothies for breakfast.

We celebrate Canada’s sporting greats, our world and Olympic champions, our pro sports icons and local heroes, each of whom have an inspiring story to tell.
And I have been inspired. By the pure heart and perseverance of marathoner Martin Parnell; by the sheer focus and athletic excellence of triathlon champion Paula Findlay; by seeing the smile on Ellie Greenwood’s face as she wins another 100K race; by the super powers of world downhill and super-G champion Erik Guay; by Jon Montgomery, who crystallized his athletic greatness with a beer. See, there is hope for all of us.

As I’ve come to know each of these athletes who have graced IMPACT’s cover in the past year, I have come to know a little more about myself. I am like you, I live, I love, I learn through movement and I am an athlete. I am an athlete with IMPACT. If you read this magazine, you are one, too.

September/October 2011